“Keeping the Feast is a triumph of will and spirit.”
—Abigail Thomas, author of the bestselling memoir A Three Dog Life
About Paula
For the first 18 years of my life, I never strayed far from the Connecticut coast; ever since, it seems I’ve been making up for lost time. I grew up along Long Island Sound, and many summers, thanks to a well-off, lonely cousin of my mother’s, we lived in old-fashioned cottages directly on the beach. We occasionally went camping, in a smelly, canvas tent, not far from the sea in Rhode Island, and one rainy week, we camped on Cape Cod. Otherwise we stayed remarkably close to home; I never crossed the Hudson till I was nearly twenty...
About Keeping the Feast
Keeping the Feast traces the path of a single bullet that upended the lives of an American couple reporting on the fall of Communism in 1989. Ultimately, though, it is a memoir that celebrates the healing to be found in the sharing of food, three times a day, among friends and family in Italy and France.
Praise for Paula's Work
"A reminder that food sustains not only bodies but souls as well.”
—People
“Written with grace and courage, Paula Butturini's Keeping the Feast is about the endurance of love in the face of overwhelming odds—depression, tragedy, loss. But it is also about the comfort to be found in the dailiness of life, when every humble act becomes an act of faith; when the preparation and sharing of three good meals a day, however simple, is both a reminder and a celebration—an insistence on celebration—of what life offers. Keeping the Feast is a triumph of will and spirit. It made me hungry for everything.”
—Abigail Thomas, author of the best-selling memoir A Three Dog Life
"Keeping the Feast is a remarkable story, gorgeously told. We reflect, relish, grieve, and heal our way with Paula Butturini through two decades in which her life intersected with a drama of history and the human condition. She is wise about so many things—place and family; depression, religion, and love; the immediate restorative pleasures of a single Italian meal. This book evokes life at its most serious and dire, and at its most mysterious and delectable. Read it, and be deepened and refreshed.”
—Krista Tippett of NPR’s Speaking of Faith
“If food is love and love heals, does that mean food heals? Paula Butturini proves the equation in gorgeous yet unadorned prose. I will never, ever forget this book.”
—Patricia Volk, author of STUFFED and To My Dearest Friends
